Romhacking.net and its wiki resource, Data Crystal, are in bad financial shape. To keep them going, a Patreon account has been set up and is now accepting pledges. Given that our sites have similar interests (and some degree of community overlap), I felt it worthy of mention here.

Modding version: PSX

* Angel should quit being a lazy bitch<@Elric> I agree to that as well

The only reason anyone tolerates them is because they are the only remaining centralized hub for general rom hacking.

More than that, there is no reason their hosting costs should be that high. They can always host files on Mega, or they could host sha256 hashes of files and magnet links to said files (something FFH should consider doing too - I'm sure we have people that could host CD Mage or JOT5 on their seedboxes). They could make github or bitbucket accounts to host storage for files and source code, there are dozens of free wikis.

Even the lack of time to manually do all this work converting stuff isn't an excuse, there are plenty of NEETs with unlimited free time who could do it for them... but of course they alienated all those NEETs (not an easy feat).

This is a money-grab, nothing more.

edit

Doesn't one of the admins have a conviction for possession of child porn... or was that Zophar.net? How do we know we aren't funding a hidden cheese pizza forum?

-No talk about exact money numbers of what site costs go per month/year, or how much a site design job would cost. Just clean 500 dollar increments, with the thousand one not really offering anything new. Looks shady already.-No comments or questions about the Patreon are allowed. The linked thread is locked saying that none are necessary, and the thread with conversation about the new site layout was locked. There have supposedly been reports that if you mention the Patreon you should expect your thread getting silently nuked. Hmm...-Most of the perks are content we had full use of before (in fact these were barred for days beforehand with no explanation given). One part of existing forum content just happens to be where you usually report bugs, meaning preferential treatment to those who have paid.-Staff didn't even know about this until it was sprung on them, multiple sources confirm this.-No one asked the community to lend a helping hand to the site, which as mentioned before is full of NEETs who would be glad to help out the last big central group for their hobby. There were opportunities many times to bring it up, we were just talking about site features and site members even have answered Help Wanted Ad posts related to site updating.

My crap radar's all over the place. This is by far and away the worst handled Patreon I've ever laid eyes on, and to be frank if it isn't a scam it has a really bad way of showing it isn't. I wish it wasn't this bad because I use the archives, but I can't on good conscience support this. In fact I backed up my junk to MEGA in response to it.

-No talk about exact money numbers of what site costs go per month/year, or how much a site design job would cost. Just clean 500 dollar increments, with the thousand one not really offering anything new. Looks shady already.-No comments or questions about the Patreon are allowed. The linked thread is locked saying that none are necessary, and the thread with conversation about the new site layout was locked. There have supposedly been reports that if you mention the Patreon you should expect your thread getting silently nuked. Hmm...-Most of the perks are content we had full use of before (in fact these were barred for days beforehand with no explanation given). One part of existing forum content just happens to be where you usually report bugs, meaning preferential treatment to those who have paid.-Staff didn't even know about this until it was sprung on them, multiple sources confirm this.-No one asked the community to lend a helping hand to the site, which as mentioned before is full of NEETs who would be glad to help out the last big central group for their hobby. There were opportunities many times to bring it up, we were just talking about site features and site members even have answered Help Wanted Ad posts related to site updating.

My crap radar's all over the place. This is by far and away the worst handled Patreon I've ever laid eyes on, and to be frank if it isn't a scam it has a really bad way of showing it isn't. I wish it wasn't this bad because I use the archives, but I can't on good conscience support this. In fact I backed up my junk to MEGA in response to it.

Can you post any chatlogs of the bolded portion?

Can you imagine the horror the mods experienced, in light of them shutting down all dissenting opinions for the past 6 or so years? The backstabbing, the purges, the constant drama and anxiety that someone is spreading rumors behind your back; and then your own admin sells you out for rent money. It's glorious.

I have a theory that rom hacking sites attract a critical mass of autistes, who enact their fantasy Sanic Hegehog Naruto-style running self-inserts before destroying all sense of community. They're not capable of meaningful human interaction, so they latch onto anything that gives them a sense of belonging. They react poorly to those who just want to have fun, like the Bad(der/est) Hacks crew... mockery is an attack on their identity, their in-group. Criticism of the latest FF6 translation holy war is an existential threat when your self-esteem depends on autistically interpreting a foreign language according to your chinese comic book porn collection.

Nightcrawler may be exposing himself to a C&D, if some game companies get wind that he's soliciting donations for hosting game mods.

Except I'm fucking sick of this drama that's basically Nightcrawler's fault. Several times a month someone ban evades in the RHDN irc room and starts shit claiming to be a staff member/NC. If this patreon had never happened and if he had just asked for donations like most years in the past none of this bullshit would have happened.

No more drama. If you want to go circlejerk about that shit, nitwit, then go to BHDN or something.

Mocking someone for their poor decision making skills isn't drama, it's humiliation. Given that we can't challenge people to a fistfight on the internet (well we can, but nothing will come of it) this is the only way to police anti-social behavior.

If someone hits you, hit back. If someone displays anti-social behavior, send some their way. In this way they learn to stop being antisocial. If you bully someone hard enough for being useless, you don't need to ban them; they'll leave or they'll stop being antisocial.

That's not to say that you should go around bullying people for no reason. If someone hasn't done something seriously wrong there's no reason to go off on them. If someone responds to open requests for them to change their behavior then that person shouldn't be bullied. The degree of mockery should be proportional to the antisocial behavior.

What is drama is someone showing up out of nowhere and trying to police others thoughts by claiming it's circlejerking. It serves no purpose other than telling people that they can't let off steam, which leads to tension in a community that leads to more sniping and butthurt.

You get what you incentivize. Provide incentives for the behavior you want in your community. If you want people to police their language so much that it's no longer fun to do whatever your community does, by all means shut down everything that's offensive. I'm sure your forums will be great when it's you and half a dozen other people that all think alike.

RHDN is plainly experiencing a money-grab right now, and the horrifyingly offensive people at BHDN are right that it's self-inflicted and that it will destroy RHDN. It's probably not possible to save RHDN, but there are a lot of talented folks there. Maybe we can capitalize on this and poach some of them that are interested in TRPGs and FFT? If nothing else airing our opinions of the admin's horrible behavior will show that he can't get away with it.

That said, if Xif, the webhost, or the admin needs cash I would be totally ok with her posting a link to her paypal, bitcoin, or monero address. This may bring some heat on FFH from SE, but that's my only real concern. Xif et al. have done and continue to do good things for FFH. No reason there shouldn't be a means to compensate them if someone wants to. Same deal with ads (though I'm not turning off my adblocker).

If RHDN is so concerned about trolls, they should flag troll accounts instead of banning them and charge them ten cents per post. Find a way to make your enemies serve you, instead of wasting energy policing dissidents.

Sorry about the late reply. Here's what I got from some anons, since you asked. It's around other places now I think so I don't really think it's going to exasperate anything (I don't want to explode it any farther either), I can't really say what else is out there:https://imgur.com/d8zcrhxhttp://tilde.town/~xkeeper/#rhdn

(Given this is imgur, the first link might be taken down. Let me know if this is the case and I'll attach the file or something. The second one has quotes from staff but not screenshots.)

Sorry about the late reply. Here's what I got from some anons, since you asked. It's around other places now I think so I don't really think it's going to exasperate anything (I don't want to explode it any farther either), I can't really say what else is out there:https://imgur.com/d8zcrhxhttp://tilde.town/~xkeeper/#rhdn

(Given this is imgur, the first link might be taken down. Let me know if this is the case and I'll attach the file or something. The second one has quotes from staff but not screenshots.)

Wow, that admin of RHDN is kinda a chode. Glad I don't use that site

Modding version: PSX

<@Angel> Teach a man to fish and he'll open up a fishery to compete against yours.